Private Pinkie

08:25 - 01/05/1008 - Near Lunar Castle, Everfree Forest

There were so many great spots to get a view of the Lunar Castle and all the surrounding buildings. All around the vast complex were hills, cliffs, observation decks, and many more natural and artificial vantage points to give guards and tourists a splendid look at all it had to offer. The unbelievably tall spires of the castle itself, the lush greenery of the gardens and courtyards, the imposing architecture of the adjacent buildings, and the thick plumes of smoke and fire spilling from Fort Polaris. That last one had to be Pinkie’s favourite.

She’d really outdone herself. Huge turnout, hundreds if not thousands of ponies had gathered to watch the party, the fireworks display was mesmerising and according to her radio, everypony had heard about the party and nopony was hurt! All that planning was worth it in the end, with maximum splendour and minimal injury. Exactly how she’d envisioned it.

First was the date. Right away, she decided it had to be a public holinight, because those were the perfect nights to have parties and also there’d be fewer ponies wherever she’d host the party, thus easier to get them away from the fireworks. When she decided to have this party, the nearest public holinight was Hearts and Hooves Night (actually “Charter Night”, but everypony treated it as Hearts and Hooves Night, same date). It was less than a month away, which was way too soon. After that was Workers’ Night, a few more months away, with plenty of time to plan. Perfect.

Next was her target. She’d already gone over a bunch of ideas, but she quickly settled on Fort Polaris. Iconic, deep in the Everfree Forest, right next to the Lunar Castle, and only a hop skip and a jump away from her old home of Ponyville. Pinkie easily convinced Mr and Mrs Cake to let her resurrect their old arrangement where Pinkie lived and worked in their bakery, giving her a place to effectively plan her party close to the site itself. With a base of operations established, she went from store to store purchasing as much petroleum and fertilizer as she could buy without raising suspicion. Ponyville was once a farming town, so there was no shortage of places to get these things from. There was, however, the issue of the site itself being the heavily guarded headquarters of the Imperial Lunar Military.

Allegedly not even a breezie could get inside Fort Polaris without the right papers. This was quickly disproven when Pinkie got her hooves on blueprints and security information, which was made surprisingly easy by going to the right ponies and pulling the right charms, as she noticed its construction and security system was full of holes. Security staff was often overworked, several weak spots in the foundations due to the rushed construction, and CCTV blind spots everywhere. It wasn’t even resistant to magical signals.

All she really needed to do to get inside was to canter up to a side entrance and act like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. Of course, her brilliant disguise certainly helped.

While she could barely see through the tiny holes in the paper mask, the look on the security officer’s face was one she’d never forget. First a look of total bewilderment, and moments later their cheeks filled with air and they looked like they were barely stopping themselves from exploding into laughter.

“Pfft- Uhah, hm, can I help you?” the security officer snickered, her eyes darting around each element of Pinkie’s disguise. The huge silver wig, the oversized army officers' uniform, the paper maché thestral wings, the cardboard rank badge attached with staples, and the paper mask with a crude drawing of Warmaster Selenite’s face.

Throwing a leg up in a dramatic salute, Pinkie loudly cleared her throat. “Atteeeeeeention! I am Warmaster Selenite! At ease, officer! I must be let through at this instant! That is an order!”

The officer repressed a laugh. “Okay? Sure thing, 'Warmaster'! Ohh, stars above,” she sighed.

Once she was through the metal detector and had been administered a quick changeling-undisguising zap, the officer let her go. The metal detector did flag up the staples in her disguise but otherwise turned up nothing. Pinkie made a quick look over her shoulder right as the officer was about to get back to their desk. Leaning up close to the officer, Pinkie lifted her mask. “Don’t tell anypony,” she stage whispered, “I’m not Warmaster Selenite! I’m actually Private Pinkie!”

“Oh my gosh I had no idea that’s so crazy!” the officer giggled, barely holding themselves together. “Surprise party, I assume? Don’t worry, I’ll keep it on the down low.”

Pinkie gave a nod and trotted away, the officer smiled and waved. Just like that, Pinkie had free reign over the most secure facility in Equestria.

She had no use for her disguise anymore and disposed of it as soon as she could, stuffing it into the trash. While she skipped around the surprisingly quiet offices, ponies only taking up a hoofful of the desk space, she drew looks from some of the staff, no doubt surprised to see her after her lengthy absence from the public eye. Thankfully, nopony bothered her. All across the walls Pinkie spotted several evacuation maps directing ponies to the nearest exits, with clear messages printed in large, bold text next to each map.

Never assume that an alarm is false, always follow procedure when the alarm is active. Delays can cause life-threatening loss of time.

The message was punctuated with a phrase in even larger, bolder, fully capitalised text beneath it.

PLAY IT SAFE, EVACUATE!

It was reassuring, to say the least!

Then the next step in her plan, setting up the fireworks. Her first stop was a bathroom, but she obviously couldn't plant anything in there. If she was seen entering that toilet and a bomb went off in there, immediately somepony would suspect something. Right away she was hopping around the empty bathroom, poking her head in each stall, in search of a service grate. Sure enough, she'd found one. All it took to bust through was a hop, a skip, a jump and a pounding thrust of her legs into the grate sending her crashing through into the crawl space. That did leave the grate noticeably damaged though, which could throw off her whole plan. It didn't concern her, whacking it with a wrench she found a few times made it good as new.

Desperately resisting the urge to break out into song or hum a catchy espionage theme, Pinkie swiftly shimmied through the cold crawl space, passing numerous vents and wires and pipes. Soon she happened upon an exit hatch overhead, which if her Pinkie Sense was correct, should lead her into a seldom-used maintenance closet. She flung the hatch open and jumped out, finding herself exactly where she wanted to be. It even had a window, confirming she was by the outer wall.

Right away, she grabbed the heaviest-looking things she could find and put them up against the door, ensuring that nopony would enter this room before the party could get started. Safety first! Next, she reached into hammerspace to retrieve the first of her fireworks: a pipe bomb! Setting that up was as basic as sticking it in the corner of the room and setting the timer. Thirty minutes would do. This one wasn’t intended to do any serious damage, just trigger the alarms and get everypony outside. With the setup complete, Pinkie exited through the hatch, through to the bathroom, and then out into the rest of the complex, unseen every step of the way.

For the next part of the plan, she went as low as she could go. Down several flights of stairs and into the bottom floor of the complex. She kept her eye out for camera blind spots and found that a bottom floor broom closet was free of unwanted eyes. Perfect. Inside the closet with nothing but her bare hooves, she burrowed her way through the concrete and into the earth, digging long winding tunnels beneath that wing of the complex. Specifically, the archives wing, where all the important plans and documents for war were kept. Plus, the gas pipes were down here too, all to provide the sparkling lights of the display. Being so far below ground, Pinkie was free to sing gleefully as her hooves worked like jackhammers, safe in the knowledge that nopony could hear her. Satisfied with the length of the tunnels, she loaded them with her ANFO mixture of fertilizer and petrol and prepared a detonator, set to go off fifteen minutes after the utility room pipe bomb. Hammerspace was so useful.

Then the final part of the plan, what she declared the piece da resistance! Was she saying that right? She never learned Aquileian. With the limited time she had left, Pinkie rushed around stashing balloons weighed down with devices with timed release mechanisms in closets and cupboards. She told her enchantress, local zebra Zecora, that she needed the balloons to withstand being in close proximity to fireworks. These were obviously no ordinary fireworks, but she couldn’t tell that to Zecora. It was all to give Pinkie the final sign of her success.

As the first bomb went off right on time, it shook Pinkie. It broke windows, cracked concrete, and triggered the alarms. She still had balloons to stuff around the building, but knew she had to get the heck out of dodge as soon as possible. Running with the evacuees, she dashed outside and up to her vantage point where, hopefully, nopony gave her extra attention. The building was empty of ponies in no time at all, giving everypony a safe view of the second bombs which too went off at the right time, leveling the whole archives wing in a spectacular display of collapsing concrete carnage. Finally, once all eyes in Equestria were squarely on Fort Polaris, the balloons were released. Pinkie’s vantage point gave her a marvelous view of the balloons and her wider masterpiece, and she swelled with satisfaction. After years of being the Empire’s wind-up display toy, she’d rained all over their parade. They’d never forget this.

But seeing them float away did briefly fill Pinkie with a sense of worry. Was it too obvious? Balloons were her signature, she didn’t host a party without them, and she was seen and recognised in Fort Polaris that night. What if she got caught? It wouldn’t take Shadow Spade to figure out what happened, to connect the few dots that led right back to her. Yet her worries dissipated as she recognised that all of this remained hypothetical. She might get caught, she might not. Those were all problems that future Pinkie would have to deal with.

At that moment, Pinkie could smile. Even if she’d never top this one, there were so many more parties to throw.